On Sunday The New York Times Magazine ran a detailed story about this country’s most polarizing political nut job/hero-to-the-right, Glenn Beck. Whatever you feel about the guy personally (and we assume, somehow, perhaps naively, that most Flavorwire readers are HUGE fans), you have to acknowledge that he’s got a huge portion of the country tucked into his pocket, hanging on to his every word. It seemed a good opportunity to point out some things we learned about Mr. Beck from the profile. The top ten factoids after the jump.
1. He hearts biodomes: Beck wants to build a six-foot barrier around his estate in New Canaan, Connecticut. “It will stop anything people send into the property, whether photographs or bullets,” Beck’s lawyer told the New Canaan zoning commission.
2. Checkered past, punny doctors: Beck smoked marijuana every day for 15 years and claims he used to be in therapy with “Dr. Jack Daniels.”
3. He loves a kooky title: Beck’s first radio show, which he hosted at age 21 in Louisville, KY, was a morning-drive program called “Captain Beck and the A-Team.”
4. On his grunge period: Beck often contemplated suicide, even “Putting a gun in [his] mouth” while listening to Nirvana records.
5. Murderer books: In the mid-90s Beck embarked on a period of “searching” and self discovery, amassing the “library of a serial killer.” He bought books by Hitler, Dershowitz, Billy Graham, Carl Sagan, and Nietzsche.
6. He never had Muslim pals: In one of his earliest assignments for Headline News, Beck interviewed Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to the House. “I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you,” he told Ellison. “Because what I feel like saying is, ‘Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.'”
7. On Beck’s anatomy, pre-9/11: Before September 11th, Beck says, “I didn’t know my butt from my elbow.”
8. He has way more money than you: Between June 2009 and June 2010, Forbes reported that Beck’s media empire amassed over $35 million.
9. Woodrow Wilson is a dick?: The phrase “We hate Woodrow Wilson” is like a secret handshake among Beck followers. “I hate him,” Beck affirmed for other Woodrow Wilson-hating women at a Kennedy Center function. “I hate that guy.”
10. He wants to kill elderly progressives: “To the day I die I am going to be a progressive-hunter,” Beck vowed on his radio show earlier this year. “I’m going to find these people that have done this to our country and expose them. I don’t care if they’re in nursing homes.”